Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 78

JULIA AND CAROLINE.

No penance can absolve their guilty fame, Nor tears, that wash out guilt, can wash out shame.

PRIOR.

LETTER I.

JULIA TO CAROLINE.

In vain, dear Caroline, you urge me to _think_; I profess only to _feel_.

"_Reflect upon my own feelings!_ a.n.a.lyze my notions of happiness!

explain to you my system!"--My system! But I have no system: that is the very difference between us. My notions of happiness cannot be resolved into simple, fixed principles. Nor dare I even attempt to a.n.a.lyze them; the subtle essence would escape in the process: just punishment to the alchymist in morality!

You, Caroline, are of a more sedate, contemplative character. Philosophy becomes the rigid mistress of your life, enchanting enthusiasm the companion of mine. Suppose she lead me now and then in pursuit of a meteor; am not I happy in the chase? When one illusion vanishes, another shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only with my existence.

"Reflect upon my feelings!"--Dear Caroline, is it not enough that I do feel?--All that I dread is that _apathy_ which philosophers call tranquillity. You tell me that by continually _indulging_, I shall weaken my natural sensibility;--are not all the faculties of the soul improved, refined by exercise? and why shall _this_ be excepted from the general law?

But I must not, you tell me, indulge my taste for romance and poetry, lest I waste that sympathy on _fiction_ which _reality_ so much better deserves. My dear friend, let us cherish the precious propensity to pity! no matter what the object; sympathy with fiction or reality arises from the same disposition.

When the sigh of compa.s.sion rises in my bosom, when the spontaneous tear starts from my eye, what frigid moralist shall "stop the genial current of the soul?" shall say to the tide of pa.s.sion, _So far shall thou go, and no farther?_--Shall man presume to circ.u.mscribe that which Providence has left unbounded?

But oh, Caroline! if our feelings as well as our days are numbered; if, by the immutable law of nature, apathy be the sleep of pa.s.sion, and languor the necessary consequence of exertion; if indeed the pleasures of life are so ill proportioned to its duration, oh, may that duration be shortened to me!--Kind Heaven, let not my soul die before my body!

Yes, if at this instant my guardian genius were to appear before me, and offering me the choice of my future destiny; on the one hand, the even temper, the poised judgment, the stoical serenity of philosophy; on the other, the eager genius, the exquisite sensibility of enthusiasm: if the genius said to me, "Choose"--the lot of the one is great pleasure, and great pain--great virtues, and great defects--ardent hope, and severe disappointment--ecstasy, and despair:--the lot of the other is calm happiness unmixed with violent grief--virtue without heroism--respect without admiration--and a length of life, in which to every moment is allotted its proper portion of felicity:--Gracious genius! I should exclaim, if half my existence must be the sacrifice, take it; _enthusiasm is my choice_.

Such, my dear friend, would be my choice were I a man; as a woman, how much more readily should I determine!

What has woman to do with philosophy? The graces flourish not under her empire: a woman's part in life is to please, and Providence has a.s.signed to her _success_, all the pride and pleasure of her being.

Then leave us our weakness, leave us our follies; they are our best arms:--

"Leave us to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases and whose follies please"

The moment grave sense and solid merit appear, adieu the bewitching caprice, the "_lively nonsense_," the exquisite, yet childish susceptibility which charms, interests, captivates.--Believe me, our _amiable defects_ win more than our n.o.blest virtues. Love requires sympathy, and sympathy is seldom connected with a sense of superiority.

I envy none their "_painful pre-eminence_." Alas! whether it be deformity or excellence which makes us say with Richard the Third,

"I am myself alone!"

it comes to much the same thing. Then let us, Caroline, content ourselves to gain in love, what we lose in esteem.

Man is to be held only by the _slightest_ chains; with the idea that he can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport; but his pride revolts against the power to which his _reason_ tells him he ought to submit. What then can woman gain by reason? Can she prove by argument that she is amiable? or demonstrate that she is an angel?

Vain was the industry of the artist, who, to produce the image of perfect beauty, selected from the fairest faces their most faultless features. Equally vain must be the efforts of the philosopher, who would excite the idea of mental perfection, by combining an a.s.semblage of party-coloured virtues.

Such, I had almost said, is my _system_, but I mean my _sentiments_. I am not accurate enough to compose a _system_. After all, how vain are systems, and theories, and reasonings!

We may _declaim_, but what do we really know? All is uncertainty--human prudence does nothing--fortune every thing: I leave every thing therefore to fortune; _you_ leave nothing. Such is the difference between us,--and which shall be the happiest, time alone can decide.

Farewell, dear Caroline; I love you better than I thought I could love a philosopher.

Your ever affectionate

JULIA.

LETTER II.

CAROLINE'S ANSWER TO JULIA.

At the hazard of ceasing to be "_charming_," "_interesting_,"

"_captivating_," I must, dear Julia, venture to reason with you, to examine your favourite doctrine of "_amiable defects_," and, if possible, to dissipate that unjust dread of perfection which you seem to have continually before your eyes.

It is the sole object of a woman's life, you say, to _please_. Her amiable defects _please_ more than her n.o.blest virtues, her follies more than her wisdom, her caprice more than her temper, and _something_, a nameless something, which no art can imitate and no science can teach, more than all.

_Art_, you say, spoils the graces, and corrupts the heart of woman; and at best can produce only a cold model of perfection; which though perhaps strictly conformable to _rule_, can never touch the soul, or please the unprejudiced taste, like one simple stroke of genuine nature.

I have often observed, dear Julia, that an inaccurate use of words produces such a strange confusion in all reasoning, that in the heat of debate, the combatants, unable to distinguish their friends from their foes, fall promiscuously on both. A skilful disputant knows well how to take advantage of this confusion, and sometimes endeavours to create it.

I do not know whether I am to suspect you of such a design; but I must guard against it.

You have with great address availed yourself of the _two_ ideas connected with the word _art_: first, as opposed to simplicity, it implies artifice; and next, as opposed to ignorance, it comprehends all the improvements of science, which leading us to search for general causes, rewards us with a dominion over their dependent effects:--that which instructs how to pursue the objects which we may have in view with the greatest probability of success. All men who act from general principles are so far philosophers. Their objects may be, when attained, insufficient to their happiness, or they may not previously have known all the necessary means to obtain them: but they must not therefore complain, if they do not meet with success which they have no reason to expect.

Parrhasius, in collecting the most admired excellences from various models, to produce perfection, concluded, from general principles that mankind would be pleased again with what had once excited their admiration.--So far he was a philosopher: but he was disappointed of success:--yes, for he was ignorant of the cause necessary to produce it.

The separate features might be perfect, but they were unsuited to each other, and in their forced union he could not give to the whole countenance symmetry and an appropriate expression.

There was, as you say, a _something_ wanting, which his science had not taught him. He should then have set himself to examine what that _something_ was, and how it was to be obtained. His want of success arose from the _insufficiency_, not the _fallacy_, of theory. Your object, dear Julia, we will suppose is "to please." If general observation and experience have taught you, that slight accomplishments and a trivial character succeed more certainly in obtaining this end, than higher worth and sense, you act from principle in rejecting the one and aiming at the other. You have discovered, or think you have discovered, the secret causes which produce the desired effect, and you employ them. Do not call this _instinct_ or _nature_; this also, though you scorn it, is _philosophy_.

But when you come soberly to reflect, you have a feeling in your mind, that reason and cool judgment disapprove of the part you are acting.

Let us, however, distinguish between disapprobation of the _object_, and the means.

Averse as enthusiasm is from the retrograde motion of a.n.a.lysis, let me, my dear friend, lead you one step backward.

_Why_ do you wish to please? I except at present from the question, the desire to please, arising from a pa.s.sion which requires a reciprocal return. Confined as _this_ wish must be in a woman's heart to one object alone, when you say, Julia, _that the admiration of others_ will be absolutely necessary to your happiness, I must suppose you mean to express only a _general_ desire to please?

Then under this limitation--let me ask you again, why do you wish to please?

Do not let a word stop you. The word _vanity_ conveys to us a disagreeable idea. There seems something _selfish_ in the sentiment--that all the pleasure we feel in pleasing others arises from the gratification it affords to our own _vanity_.

We refine, and explain, and never can bring ourselves fairly to make a confession, which we are sensible must lower us in the opinion of others, and consequently mortify the very _vanity_ we would conceal.

So strangely then do we deceive ourselves as to deny the existence of a motive, which at the instant prompts the denial. But let us, dear Julia, exchange the word _vanity_ for a less odious word, self-complacency; let us acknowledge that we wish to please, because the success raises our self-complacency. If you ask why raising our self-approbation gives us pleasure, I must answer, that I do not know. Yet I see and feel that it does; I observe that the voice of numbers is capable of raising the highest transport or the most fatal despair. The eye of man seems to possess a fascinating power over his fellow-creatures, to raise the blush of shame, or the glow of pride.

I look around me, and I see riches, t.i.tles, dignities, pursued with such eagerness by thousands, only as the signs of distinction. Nay, are not all these things sacrificed the moment they cease to be distinctions?

The moment the prize of glory is to be won by other means, do not millions sacrifice their fortunes, their peace, their health, their lives, for _fame_? Then amongst the highest pleasures of human beings I must place self-approbation. With this belief, let us endeavour to secure it in the greatest extent, and to the longest duration.